Edited by James Schiff
Photography by Jon Hughes
“One of the best and oddest academic books to appear in quite some time.… (A) blissful snort of unfiltered catnip.”
The New York Times
“Acres of print have been consecrated to Updike and his achievements, from academic treatises to Nicholson Baker’s sublimely idiosyncratic tribute U & I, but perhaps the book that captures Updike’s writerly public persona best is a curious little gem called Updike in Cincinnati: A Literary Performance, an account (edited by James Schiff) of Updike’s readings and musings at a short story festival in 2001. Graced with Updike’s customary humor, perception, painterly eye, gloved modesty, and acute social radar, Updike in Cincinnati is most revealing when the author is acknowledging the limitations that lie treacherously under the surface.”
Vanity Fair
“An invaluable time capsule.... William H. Pritchard and Donald J. Greiner join Schiff as three of the very best Updike critics....”
American Literary Scholarship
“Updike impromptu is remarkable. Here, in print, is that clever man dancing around an audience question couched in a baseball analogy … which concerns Updike never having received the Nobel Prize. Updike responds with an extemporaneous, philosophical and very knowing take on baseball history, including the Black Sox scandal.…”
Cincinnati CityBeat
For two spring days in 2001, John Updike visited Cincinnati, Ohio, engaging and charming his audiences, reading from his fiction, fielding questions, sitting for an interview, participating in a panel discussion, and touring the Queen City.
Successful writers typically spend a portion of their lives traveling the country to give readings and lectures. While a significant experience for author and audience alike, this public spectacle, once covered in detailed newspaper accounts, now is barely noticed by the media. Updike in Cincinnati—composed of a wealth of materials, including session transcripts, short stories discussed and read by the author, photographs, and anecdotal observations about Updike's performance and personal interactions--is unique in its comprehensive coverage of a literary visit by a major American author.
Updike's eloquence, intelligence, improvisational skills, and gift for comedy are all on display. With natural grace, he discusses a range of topics, including his novels and short stories, his mother and oldest son as writers, Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson, the Nobel Prize, his appearance on The Simpsons, the Cold War, and Hamlet.
Augmented with commentary by critics W. H. Pritchard and Donald Greiner, and an introduction and interview by James Schiff, Updike in Cincinnati provides an engaging and detailed portrait of one of America's contemporary literary giants.
James Schiff is an associate professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of several books on contemporary fiction, including Updike's Version, John Updike Revisited, and Understanding Reynolds Price. More info →
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Release date: March 2007
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Release date: March 2007
176 pages
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“Anyone interested in Updike’s role and stature in such public literary gatherings will surely not want to miss reading James Schiff’s excellent portrayal and record.… Schiff has done us all a great favor with this risky publishing venture.”
The Centaurian
”Updike in Cincinnati … has to be one of the most oddly appealing and cult-like books about author John Updike ever published.… It's a bit obsessive but also utterly engrossing, due in large part to Updike's wit, charm and intelligence. The man can answer even the most potentially embarrassing question with grace and humor. After reading this, I feel like I was actually there.”
Cincinnati Enquirer
“I had a great time in Cincinnati; but why is there no shrine to Doris Day?”
John Updike
Virginia Woolf
Reading the Renaissance
Edited by Sally Greene
The story of “Shakespeare’s sister” that Virginia Woolf tells in A Room of One’s Own has sparked interest in the question of the place of the woman writer in the Renaissance. By now, the process of recovering lost voices of early modern women is well under way. But Woolf’s engagement with the Renaissance went deeper than that question indicates, as important as it was.
Gender Studies · Literary Studies · British Literature · Literary Criticism · Women’s Studies
Sight Unseen
Beckett, Pinter, Stoppard, and Other Contemporary Dramatists on Radio
By Elissa S. Guralnick
In Sight Unseen radio drama, a genre traditionally dismissed as popular culture, is celebrated as high art. The radio plays discussed here range from the conventional (John Arden’s Pearl) to the docudramatic (David Rudkin’s Cries from Casement), from the curtly conversational (Harold Pinter’s A Slight Ache) to the virtually operatic (Robert Ferguson’s Transfigured Night), testifying to radio drama’s variety and literary stature.
Theater - History and Criticism · Radio - History and Criticism · Literary Criticism · American Literature · British Literature · Literary Studies
The Other John Updike
Poems, Short Stories, Prose, Play
By Donald J. Greiner
John Updike has won a National Book Award and has earned both critical and popular acclaim. At the moment, his reputation rests largely on his novels, especially Rabbit, Run; The Centaur; Of the Farm; and The Coup. Of his many books, more than half are volumes of poems, stories, essays and reviews, and one play, yet the numerous critical books on Updike concentrate primarily on his long fiction with the result that over one half of his canon is often ignored.
Literary Cincinnati
The Missing Chapter
By Dale Patrick Brown
The history of Cincinnati runs much deeper than the stories of hogs that once roamed downtown streets. In addition to hosting the nation’s first professional baseball team, the Tall Stacks riverboat celebration, and the May Festival, there’s another side to the city—one that includes some of the most famous names and organizations in American letters.
